Integrate BigQuery Data in the Pentaho Report Designer

The CData JDBC Driver for BigQuery data enables access to live data from dashboards and reports. This article shows how to connect to BigQuery data as a JDBC data source and publish reports based on BigQuery data in Pentaho.

Getting Started

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Connect and Create a Report

1. Copy the JAR file of the driver, located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory, to the \Report-Designer\lib\jdbc\ folder in the Pentaho directory.
2. Run the report-designer.bat file in the \Report-Designer\ folder to open the Report-Designer UI.

3. Create a new data source with the driver by clicking Data -> Add Data Source -> Advanced -> JDBC (Custom) and then creating a new BigQuery connection. In the resulting dialog, configure the connection properties as shown below.

   • Custom Connection URL property: Enter the JDBC URL. This starts with jdbc:googlebigquery: and is followed by a semicolon-separated list of connection properties.

     Google uses the OAuth authentication standard. To access Google APIs on behalf of individual users, you can use the embedded credentials or you can register your own OAuth app.

     OAuth also enables you to use a service account to connect on behalf of users in a Google Apps domain. To authenticate with a service account, you will need to register an application to obtain the OAuth JWT values.

     In addition to the OAuth values, you will need to specify the DatasetId and ProjectId. See the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation for a guide to using OAuth.

     Built-in Connection String Designer

     For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the BigQuery JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

     java -jar cdata.jdbc.googlebigquery.jar

     Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

     When you configure the JDBC URL, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

     Below is a typical JDBC URL:

     jdbc:googlebigquery:DataSetId=MyDataSetId;ProjectId=MyProjectId;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH
   • Custom Driver Class Name: Enter cdata.jdbc.googlebigquery.GoogleBigQueryDriver.
   • User Name: The username to authenticate with.
   • Password: The password to authenticate with.

Add BigQuery Data to a Report

You are now ready to create a report with BigQuery data.

1. Add the BigQuery source to your report: Click Data -> Add Data Source -> JDBC and select the data source.

2. Configure the query. This article uses the one below:

   SELECT OrderName, Freight FROM Orders
3. Drag a chart onto your report and double-click it to edit the chart. Run the report to display the chart. You can use the results of this query to create a simple chart for the Orders table.
4. Finally, run the report to see the chart.